DOD241: Take My Waifu, Please!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad, that's my thing I know now what I can offer you that no one else can Complete and under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's fluffing its body pillows. I'm Tom Curry. I've joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen. Yes.

0:00:38 Thomas: Hello. Now, normally we diagnose my head trauma and or whatever else is my brain, whatever else my wits are leaving me. But this week, this episode, I've been instructed to not know what's coming. So just so everybody knows. Uh -huh.

0:00:53 Eli: Now, to be fair, I did put it into our Slack. He didn't read it, so we're still getting a little bit of diagnosis.

0:00:59 Thomas: I was going to read it.

0:01:01 Tom: It's extremely knowable if you... Yeah. I am

0:01:03 Thomas: Yeah, but that's not me having dementia. That's just me working the same way I worked all my life. Like that's literally couldn't be more me. Yeah.

0:01:11 Tom: Here. What are we doing?

0:01:12 Eli: Yeah, prepared.

0:01:13 Thomas: If I didn't do that, you should be concerned. If I ever come in, like I did all the reading ahead of time.

0:01:18 Eli: Yeah, that would be terrible. Yeah.

0:01:19 Tom: You know, I remember Thomas Smith. I don't know if you were just doing... It wasn't even Serious Inquiries Only. You might have still been doing Thomas and the Bible. But I remember cecil and I were doing the david eich book and we flew you in and we're like cool did you read the chapter and you're like now wing it oh

0:01:32 Thomas: I read most of it. While I was working on a thing, I wasworking on a different joke that did not land at all crashed harder than you guys in Edinburgh. And so I was like, well, that's good that I spent my time on that and then read half the David Icke chapter. I mean, because to To be fair, like, can you remember any of it? What I did was I read half the David Icke chapter and was like, I have the same nothing to say about every part of this.

0:01:59 Thomas: This is so crazy that there's not going to be different wrinkles to my commentary.

0:02:00 Tom: It is yeah yeah it's trying to fill up on word salad yeah no

0:02:06 Thomas: Like, it's just like gobbledygook.

0:02:07 Eli: Well, that's a lie. Yeah, the problem is like, because the thing that's interesting is you sort of outside in skepticism, You hear about David Icke and everyone sort of gives you the hits. They're like, they're lizard people. And the Hebrew God is an interdimensional sphinx that's trying to feed off the emotional energy that the lizards from Venus, who are Jews, are feeding to it through human suffering. Right. So you get like a little bit of fun there. But like then you get the fucking interdimensional Sphinx's work drama and you're like I mean I don't need this part. You're wrong. The problem is that so much of it is just like expounding on a thing that's not true so it's fun to be like international sphinx throw not international international immigrant sphinxes are welcome here on dear old dance interdimensional sphinX what and you do you do like your one or two jokes and

0:02:28 Thomas: Yeah, see, I'm out. I've already, don't care. It's all too crazy. Yeah.

0:02:59 Eli: No what kind of riddle blah blah but then it's like in the first age the interdimensional sphinxx and you're like well no not in any of the ages but gentlemen gentlemen do you know the only thing worse than trying to make your way through the truly blithering nonsense that is David Icke's body of work. Why? It's the auto -ads. And hey, maybe if you live in England you might get an auto -ad for David Icke coming to a festival near you. I think someone's told us that that's happened once in a while. And hey we have no control over those but you know what we do have control over? Our Patreon over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. There you're getting a commercial free version of every single show. You're getting bonus episodes once a month And you're getting a little extra parenting story at the end of every single show. Folks, we're on recording, I don't know what episode we're in, but we're on recording 282. You put all those together, you've had at least an

0:03:53 Thomas: Lifetime.

0:03:53 Eli: Episode's worth of parenting stories by at least one. At least one! Just pure parenting goodness. And you can unlock all of it over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads.

0:03:55 Thomas: At least an episode. Hundreds the only downside is you won't get ice recruitment ads which sucks because it it is I love do you guys get complaints about auto ads being ice recruitment heads

0:04:11 Eli: You won't get ice, that's true. True, I miss those ICE recruitment ads.

0:04:16 Tom: I don't understand the complaint

0:04:17 Thomas: Oh it's the best yeah I know every time I'm like that's the ideal audience for ice recruitment adds is you guys it couldn't be more perfect they have unlimited budget now they're going to advertise wherever wherever the fuck they want. Why would you not want it to be where it's not going to work?

0:04:34 Tom: I don't understanding the same thing it's like yes I would like them to give us money to do the least effective ice thing that they can do there's nothing less effective that they can

0:04:39 Thomas: Yeah. Imagine if our military was like, we've got a billion dollar budget that we're putting toward killing people in the middle East. But what if like a 10 % of that? Yeah, exactly.

0:04:53 Eli: Pretty easy to imagine so far, Thomas, I'm with you.

0:04:55 Thomas: Like he preached. Yeah. So you with me? What if instead of that, we were paying your old dads to kill people in the middle east. And we're like, yeah, we're not going gonna do that, but give us the money. Isn't that like good? I don't know.

0:05:03 Tom: Do yeah that's not gonna happen right I'll take the

0:05:06 Eli: Wait a second, how much money in which people?

0:05:08 Tom: Dough all

0:05:10 Thomas: Yeah. Sorry. Two thirds of us.

0:05:21 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:05:23 Tom: So we're gonna do an email today a surprise Thomas email today but Eli if people wanted to send us their questions if they want to send Send us an email. Should they and how?

0:05:35 Eli: Yes, they should, Tom. Now, is this episode going to be the best example of empathy and understanding for people's scenarios? Probably not. But if you listen to the canon, sometimes we're nice about the advice we give.

0:05:50 Thomas: Man, I can't wait for this.

0:05:50 Eli: And you might win that lottery by sending us an email to thedads at drolldads .com that's thedads at drolldads dot com

0:05:59 Tom: Now, what if you had something that was almost unbelievably personal that you wanted us to read and address? Yes. Yes. Send it to us on air. Yeah. Send us the weirdest. All right. So here we go.

0:06:04 Eli: Extra send it to us definitely send it to us but give us permission to read it out loud on air honestly the amount of heart like Tom has gotten to sit with this email for a week but if I could have surprised Tom with this email

0:06:20 Tom: I know you would have loved it.

0:06:23 Eli: It would have been 40 minutes of just like Like, but you can't. That's not. We gotta start over. We gotta go. We all take off all our clothes. And then we just, we invent everything. Rocks, fire, lightning. I miss the ocean. Why did we leave? It's so quiet down there.

0:06:31 Tom: My. Yes. Look. I'm, I'm right there. I'm already right there, man.

0:06:48 Eli: And when you die, you get to be sand. No downsides.

0:06:53 Tom: Are you reading my journals again? I thought I put them in the snake cave.

0:06:55 Eli: I am reading your journals. You know, we're on Vulgarity for Charity and so. So.

0:06:59 Tom: Okay. All right. So here we go. So my 35 male partner, 34 non -binary she, they is in the waifu shipping community. And I'm not sure how to feel about it.

0:07:08 Thomas: All right gonna need an explanation is that is it explained in the email or

0:07:13 Eli: Oh, it sure isn't.

0:07:13 Tom: I, my context will, will probably get you there, But Eli, Eli, why don't you explain waifu and shipping? They're both, yeah, you

0:07:14 Thomas: Okay I figured eli oh okay okay sure

0:07:19 Eli: Yeah, no, I think we need to stop and understand. Okay. So yeah.

0:07:22 Thomas: I just want to make sure I'm fully present for this I want you know I can make sure I fully understand

0:07:27 Tom: Might want to take notes.

0:07:28 Thomas: It okay I've got I got a got a notepaper

0:07:30 Eli: So the waifu shipping community refers to a segment of fandom culture focused on romantic appreciation of fictional female characters, or waifus, often pronounced waifues by people who have Americanized it, and discussing potential romantic pairings, I .e. shipping, within and across different media. And then very helpful it adds this community primarily exists online across various platforms oh you fucking think not a lot of national conventions they're not sharing a hilton with dentistry con no

0:08:08 Tom: They don't make mention of it, but it is almost exclusively anime characters.

0:08:14 Thomas: That's what I thought it was

0:08:14 Tom: Like, I know it's not entirely, but it's almost exclusively animate characters.

0:08:18 Thomas: I didn't know it could not be that so I don't know what's happening sorry I'm very this is couldn't be further from me I have no idea

0:08:24 Tom: I don't think the dictionary definition sort of requires it to be anime, though. Does it? I mean, yeah. Yeah.

0:08:29 Eli: No no there's a big harry potter thing there's all the

0:08:32 Thomas: I want to emphasize I have No fucking idea Tom I wasn't contradicting

0:08:35 Tom: But if you were doing Harry Potter, would you still have a waifu or waifuu in Harry Potter? In addition, okay, we'll

0:08:38 Eli: Yeah so yeah so waifu waifу has just become sort of the catch -all term for fictional character that I have chosen to admire mire we'll get to it in a second you know read the email and I'll explain another element of this that I think is

0:08:50 Tom: Get to it. Yeah. My partner and I have been together for 16 years and married for almost 12. And throughout that time, we've had a good marriage. About six years ago, she let me know that they were in love with and in a relationship with a fictional movie character. She leaned heavily into it, started to ignore me, and we had a blow up. Things are much better now, but I'm just confused at how I feel.

0:09:15 Tom: I'm her only in real life partner. I know. But they now have 10 other fictional relationships and

0:09:12 Thomas: I'm not confused now that no they sure don't they sure doubt do

0:09:21 Eli: Important summer

0:09:22 Tom: Are you're exactly right are in several discord communities and is all about this lifestyle she has married a character and has a kiddo due with another in july in many ways I'm cool with

0:09:35 Thomas: You enjoy oh wow okay is that how long yeah yeah.

0:09:38 Eli: Baby yeah

0:09:40 Tom: This as long as me and our son continue to have normal relationships with her but I'm struggling with something

0:09:42 Thomas: Oh, there's a kid involved in this mental illness. Damn it. I meant a real kid.

0:09:47 Tom: Well there's two there's a kid and a kid food so how dare you thomas how dare you

0:09:53 Eli: When

0:09:56 Thomas: I do. I dare. I Dare.

0:09:58 Eli: We got sent this letter I immediately texted tom tom I need you to start referring to aislinn as your kid

0:10:03 Tom: I occasionally feel jealous and I don't think it's over losing time to others I don's feel like it makes sense on one hand these relationships are fake but on another the emotions she feels are 100 % real and legitimate and I'm not sure how I feel about this I'm I'm also concerned about our three -year -old. Is this just a topic that never comes up, or how do I navigate that in the future?

0:10:05 Thomas: Oh wow. Tremendous. Dear God. Well, it depends on the terms of the divorce. Yeah.

0:10:28 Tom: Yeah, bud, your mom has body pillows of characters she's in love with, and by the way, you have an imaginary brother. I don't know. I'd just love to hear your thoughts, John. So, Eli, can you back us up here a little bit, because I think you...

0:10:41 Thomas: This email has turned me into Tom. And that's the worst thing I could say, really. All of

0:10:48 Tom: All right, do you want some wind chimes? I can ship you some wind chimes.

0:10:51 Thomas: A sudden,

0:10:51 Eli: Same wind chimes I can't stop them they're in the washing machine

0:10:53 Thomas: Tom's chime foos look much better.

0:11:01 Tom: For fuck's sake for advice the advice is to get a lawyer like you need a lawyer you need a good lawyer every single sentence is worse than the sentence that

0:11:04 Thomas: Well, I don't know, because the partner might get a cartoon character as a lawyer, so you might be totally fucking fine.

0:11:15 Eli: They get fucking foghorn leghorn you're fucking out of luck mm

0:11:15 Tom: Preceded well I'm just a simple country chicken

0:11:18 Thomas: Yeah hold on is this the thing that gets us canceled we've always talked about oh

0:11:27 Tom: What when do we get canceled

0:11:28 Thomas: There's going to be something that's too far for us you know like we there's gonna is will our entire audience be like my god

0:11:32 Tom: Right this is it

0:11:30 Eli: Oh right yeah this is our like dawkins moment yeah

0:11:35 Thomas: The insensitivity yeah will that happen if it does I welcome it I am now fucking richard dawkins I guess if this is this is I'm out

0:11:36 Tom: I can't believe look if the idea of acceptance Acceptance extends into, I have to accept that I am losing time with my partner because they have body pillows and romantic relationships with imaginary friends. And I'm supposed to like, be like, yeah, everything's just cool. Like that's totally not a delusional psychopathic behavior.

0:12:00 Thomas: Yeah no it's just delusion Yeah,

0:12:03 Tom: And there's no such thing as severe, deep mental illness. This is actually just, hey, why don't kink shame? Don't look, fuck that noise. This is fucking insane. This This is absolutely beyond.

0:12:16 Eli: I'm not shaming the exploration of the waifu kink if that's a thing that you want to play with you want to role play with it you want a role play it with the strangers because this is something that I wanted to bring up the listener doesn't mention this in the email but but something that people do quite a bit that I imagine is happening here is that oftentimes other people play the fictional characters.

0:12:21 Thomas: Hundred percent.

0:12:39 Eli: So I will go onto the waifu discord, right? And I will say, Hey, I want to marry Draco Malfoy. And then another man who I can't emphasize enough looks exactly like me. It says, I will be Draco Malphoy. And then we write back and forth where I'm in love with Draco Malfo. He's draco malfoy that is a relationship right it's another relationship and it's one that our listener obviously feels uncomfortable with and the thing is like we have and look it's it's sort of you know this pendulum thing it always swings back and forth right which is that I think like there has definitely been an unhealthy shall we call it curry -esque repression of kink in society society for a very long time. We look at, am I the asshole all the time? And we see like, I realized that my boyfriend was jerking off to the swimsuit issue. Should I divorce him and send our three kids into the deepest waters of the ocean to start over at once again? There's that side where it's just like this totally insane thing. But then there's the other side where it's like, if this is a thing I enjoy sexually, it's none of your business. And something really really interesting. I was in, not the waifu situation, but I was in a relationship very early into my like, exploding myself years, where my partner because we were poly, treated me very badly. Had some extremely not cash money incidents. But it was all under the guise of poly. When I'd be like, oh, that hurts my feelings, she'd be like, um, we're poly. And I'd be like oh, curse you invisible barrier called poly. Polyamory, I can't say or do anything. I don't have emotions in polyamory. And we see this in poly relationships a lot, right? Which is like the quote unquote poly couple where one of them is like, oh my God, poly is so great. Works so well for us. And the other one is like you ever notice how many sharp knives people keep around their home? They're just everywhere calling

0:12:39 Thomas: Oh,

0:12:42 Tom: It's totally different. Yeah.

0:12:53 Thomas: Boy. Yeah. Yeah, right.

0:14:41 Eli: To you with their soft, sweet handles. I think that what we have here is another example of like, this is a person who's being abused. If you do not consent to this if this isn't something that you want your partner to engage in that's part of the relationship

0:14:58 Tom: Well, I just want to pause real quick because, like, I want to point out there's nothing for the other partner to engage in here. As described, the person in this relationship with the body pillows is not asking for the guy to join in. It's not saying, hey, let's do this thing together. What they're describing is a mutually exclusive set of emotional interactions with fucking imaginary friends that's what they'RE describing this is not kink behavior like I just want to like for me I want to totally exclude that idea as being a nonsensical that is not kink behaviour what this is is not understanding the difference between liking stuff and that That liking of stuff turning into real things. Like, it's taking fandom to a place where you have confused what's real with just stories you read. That's not a good thing. Like, that's fucked up. I'm sorry, but that is just fucked up." You can like stuff.

0:15:58 Tom: You can light stuff real fucking hard. But it doesn't make things a true. It doesn't like, there's no relationship here.

0:15:58 Thomas: You could have engaged your partner and been like, hey, you know, this is something I'm exploring. Would you be willing to be a part of this in any way and I think it should go without saying that I'm not shaming like the kink itself in a in a it's just like this idea that this is just something that has happened that the partner has no idea like it's juste oh I'm officially in a relationship with these cartoon characters or whatever the fuck it is like that's just nonsense sorry like Like, it's absolute fucking nonsense.

0:16:30 Tom: Yeah, but like, a kink is a sex thing. Like, what she's describing is an emotional attachment. Like I want to like a reread from the email so that like I don't confuse myself or the audience here about what I want To be like clear where I'm drawing the line because for me this is nothing to do with sex stuff This isn't necessarily a sex thing What they said is they were in love with and in a relationship with a movie character She leaned heavily into it and started to ignore me then later They now have 10 other fictional relationships are in several discord communities and it's all about this lifestyle has married a character and has a kid foo with another due in july that's a series of delusions that somebody has decided to fully embrace in exclusion of reality and an exclusion of the actual other human people that are in their life I guess I just don't want to like be like that's the same as like I like big titties or you know I want to fucking jerk off on your feet or whatever like it's just wildly

0:17:29 Eli: I'll also say this even if it's not delusional which I I think there is a low chance that this is the case but let's just for the sake of argument let's say it's not delusion let's that this kind of role play is a fun thing that they enjoy doing but they have hard lines both in their mind personally and in their life that they understand this is just a game of pretend that they are playing they're doing it too much they're doing it to the exclusion of their partner and so any hobby you do to the inclusion of your partner world of warcraft fucking video games sports right anything you do right hi if you hike and your partner says hey I feel really ignored and this feels like it's a big part of your life and I have nothing to do with it. That really matters, right?

0:17:54 Tom: Different yes yes hiking whatever yeah

0:18:16 Thomas: Mm -hm.

0:18:16 Eli: You got to make space for your partners in your life. And I think it is simply because, and this is sort of part of why I really wanted to talk about this. I think that because internet communities like this are so new or kink positivity is so new because these things sort of fall into the new ish zone. We're not used to drawing those lines in the way that we would with a hockey team or a fucking you know playing video games or whatever the case might be like this is a no -brainer question if a listener had written in and said hey my husband plays world of warcraft 12 hours a day we barely speak he comes home says hi to me we had a big blow up about it it's nothing about his life all he does is spend his time we'd say yeah no you're being ignored you should assert your boundaries but because it falls into this sort of internet community new kink viewpoint right It feels untouchable. It feels like identity in a way that, again, I just want to emphasize, it is not.

0:18:16 Tom: Yes

0:18:37 Thomas: Mm -hum. Mm -huh.

0:19:13 Eli: You don't have to make anybody feel bad for a thing that's essential about them or a thing they deeply care about to draw a line and say that this behavior is unhealthy.

0:19:23 Tom: Yeah and like I want to seize on a couple of other things from this email that I think are worth exploring too then along the same lines so this person says the the john who wrote right in says I occasionally feel jealous and I don't think it's over losing time to others I don's feel like it makes sense on one hand these relationships are fake but on another the emotions she feels are 100 real and legitimate and I'm not sure how I feel about it there's so much in just that one that one little paragraph that one sentence so first of all it's okay to feel jealous like there's this weird thing that happens where there's like jealousy shaming and a certain amount of jealousy is perfectly fine like it can like any other emotional response if you just never felt anger you'd be like yeah it's a perfectly adapted person who just like it's okay to fill a normal amount of jealously and you get to decide as a couple what that That jealousy sort of acceptability between the two of you is. And as long as it's not toxic and problematic and abusive, it's okay. We don't have to like eliminate jealousy. Like it's this always 100 % problematically toxic thing. This person feels jealousy because the other party is ignoring them. The other party has cheating with fucking fictional characters, emotionally cheating on this person. Why would you not feel

0:19:47 Thomas: Mm -hu. Mm -h. Yeah. Yeah. Mm.

0:20:41 Tom: Bad about that? Don't try to fucking tell yourself that because these things are not real, they're real enough. They're fully real to this other person, and they're real enough to you that you have to fucking contend with it. And now you're trying to sell yourself that because it's fake, you don't have a right to feel bad about it.

0:20:59 Eli: But even if you don't believe in the sort of jealousy factor, which again I think is a big problem of sort of the new speak involved in here, because I don't belief in jealousy. I really don't believe in jealousy. If Anna had 10 other partners that she was talking to online, boyfriends, girlfriends, whoever they are, are friends. Great. Good for me. Good for her. Awesome for everybody. But if I am feeling ignored, that feeling is not jealousy. It's neglect.

0:21:23 Eli: It is having my needs met in a relationship. The only time when having your your needs met crosses over into jealousy is when part of your needs become what someone can and can't do with other people. You're not asking this person not to have waifu relationships or waifus relationships, right? Or not participate in these communities. You are feeling ignored. You're feeling like you're not an equal partner to this fantasy life. And that's not jealousy. That's just a valid need for affirmation in the time of your partner.

0:21:55 Thomas: Yeah, that's interesting.

0:21:57 Tom: It's also entirely legitimate, in my view, to be like, yeah, I would ask you not to have these waifu relationships. It's okay for that to be your boundary.

0:22:05 Thomas: Mm -hn.

0:22:05 Tom: It's like, yeah, it's okay to be like, I don't want this in our life together. This is not a thing. This would be, personally, this would be immediately disqualifying for me. I'd be like, yeah, we're just not doing that.

0:22:15 Thomas: Oh, yeah, especially the way that it was described as being, that is the main thing for me, is the way it was describe as like, well, this has happened, it is an involuntary thing with no input from the partner, it just, the partner is disregarded, at least as described, you You know, who knows? But like as described, taking the email at face value, this is just insane. For one, it's delusional, but also it's just fucking what is happening in this relationship. This person sounds like they are completely disregarding their partner in any in every way. Like I don't like that's not good no matter what mental delusions it comes with.

0:22:29 Tom: A hundred percent.

0:22:50 Eli: Yeah, I'll say say something that I think is under discussed but I think it's true I think if there are parts of your life you can't discuss with your partner there's a reason and it's probably not a healthy one right like one of the things that I talk about all the time is like does your partner know what porn you watch that's actually pretty important look they don't have to volunteer right your partner might not be like oh goody let's swap hyperlinks right but if there is a part of the your private sexual life that you are afraid to talk to your partner about or that you're uncomfortable talking to your partner about, that's an unhealthy thing to have in a relationship. You should be able to discuss all parts of your life with your partner, right? All parts that aren't surprise presents gotta be on the table in order to have a healthy relationship.

0:23:37 Thomas: Mm hum. I like that because I feel like that'S something that probably will get some amount of disagreement. Agreement, but I think you're absolutely right.

0:23:46 Tom: Yeah, I agree with that. I a hundred percent agree with That. Like, why would you want to be like? Yeah, well, I don't want to know what you're into. And like, I also think it's entirely legitimate if somebody develops a, and again, like, I really would veer this away from kink because I don' think it actually has much to do with that.

0:24:02 Tom: But if somebody develops something like this kind of an interest that is at this intense of a level, it's okay for you to be like, yeah, we got to be done. You don't have to accept everything just because you love someone and have loved someone. People change. And it's OK for somebody to change. And it's okay for you to be like yeah that's not a change that I'm gonna hang out with that's not cool like in this email one of the things that I wanted to grab hold of real quick and I know I read it already but like the emotions she feels are 100 real and legitimate no they're not they're they're don't do that just because somebody has a feeling

0:24:38 Eli: No, they're not, yeah. That sounds like you're repeating something that they have said to you.

0:24:44 Tom: Yes but it's part of that like confusion like you were talking about eli like in our understandable and right -headed zeal to embrace things like kink and to be more accepting I think that like there's been this idea that like nothing is ever off limits no matter what it is but yes there can be things that are off limits and there can b things that are not real and not legitimate and having fictional relationships that you think are relationships they're not they're one -sided there's no other person on the other side you don't have a relationship it's definitionally not real it's okay for you to be like yeah that's actually less than it's a lot less than and it needs to be something that you play with and put down but if it becomes bigger than that throw the whole person away that's not okay

0:25:34 Eli: Well, and more importantly, it sounds like Like this person has explained to you the equality of how they feel about this online community and your own relationship. And that seems unfair, right? You have an actual kid with this person. You're raising a child together. You need to be partners and in a way that these online relationships do not. And so if your partner is saying, hey, I have the same amount of or my love is as legitimate with Draco Malfoy as it is with you and our mutually raised child. First of all, there is an incredibly high chance they're in psychosis, right? So you should take care of your partner medically, right, the chances that your partner is not in psychoses and having this level of a fantasy life, remarkably low, in my opinion, but even if they're not, right even if they are completely out of psychoses, they are doing a very unkind thing to you.

0:26:28 Eli: And again, if we put this in fucking Hallmark movie speak right where the boyfriend comes Comes home and says, sorry, babe, my football league and my love for it is just as important as my love for you.

0:26:40 Thomas: Or what if instead of a cartoon character, I think it would be, you might see if it was like a female celebrity or something. Like imagine if it, imagine if I was like, yeah, exactly.

0:26:48 Eli: Or a co -worker. Yeah.

0:26:49 Tom: Yeah well I was gonna say like you guys have heard the term like work wife or work husband what if you were to belike hey look I know that you

0:26:54 Eli: Mine's Thomas, by the way, in case anyone's wondering.

0:26:55 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, that's so nice. Wow. You made my day.

0:26:59 Eli: Thomas's is Lydia. Hurts me every time.

0:27:03 Thomas: I get to have another one. What do we, you know, what's Polly for? Yeah.

0:27:03 Tom: You guys are

0:27:04 Eli: No, we don't have to get out of the sun air.

0:27:10 Tom: Poly work. Why?

0:27:10 Eli: Yeah, call Lydia. Tell tell her our relationship is just as legitimate are equal to mine for yours

0:27:14 Thomas: Yeah. My feelings for Eli are just as legitimate.

0:27:18 Tom: That would be another good example. If somebody said like, oh yeah, like I know you needed to get together and you needed me to go to your mom's house and help you move. But I got my work. Wife has something too.

0:27:30 Thomas: Draco and I.

0:27:32 Tom: So clearly like, I don't understand how to have a difference here like that's it's a crazy

0:27:35 Thomas: This is so stupid. I'm sorry.

0:27:37 Tom: Thing to do yeah it is it's insane it's insane yeah

0:27:40 Thomas: This is really dumb. This person has a kid. That is, Wow.

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0:27:51 Eli: This is the other thing that I wanted to talk on and this is going to be the less cash money and fun part of it which is this is a person who from everything I can tell is letting their fantasy life creep into their real life and look ain't nobody love kink more than your boy the boss I I am so super psyched for kink, and if it consists of consenting adults, I am all about it. Go off kings, queens, and non -binary royalty. Have yourselves a time.

0:28:20 Eli: When you expose children to kink... That is child sexual abuse. So, something that is very important to understand is... I am in love with Draco Malfoy, and we have a kid... Is not an appropriate thing to say to a child. Because they don't have the layers of understanding about sexual removal from reality and fantasy. They don't have all the tools in their toolbox you need to understand that in a healthy way. If I'm getting a drink with my buddy, if I'm sitting next to Tom at the bar and Tom turns to me and goes, you know, sometimes Hayley dresses up as Mario. I can be like, fuck yeah, man. Mustache or no mustache? And he's like, mustache? That's the whole point of it, right? Because I have the toolbox to go, okay, this is a fantasy thing that my friends are doing. I'm going to dress like Bowser more around them. See if I can get involved in this right your kids do not your kids are learning what is normal and this should not be normalized the way that regular relationships should be normalized that doesn't mean that the behavior itself is inherently shameful or that there's anything

0:29:25 Eli: Wrong with this community or what it means to do it means it's not meant for family time and at the very very least at the very least right now it is being prioritized over family time and that sucks

0:29:37 Thomas: So many men play fantasy football. I used to play, used to love fantasy football, it's a cool, fun game to play. Now imagine if instead of just playing fantasy football I came home and was like, hey, me and the boys, we lost our game, and I just pretended I was on the team with the players to the exclusion of my partner and like like insistently, like, hey, my feelings out there on the field are just as real as any, you know, it's like, that's insane. I just want to make very clear that I think we have, like, it'S not about kink shaming. This is just fucking crazy. You don't just pretend all of a sudden out of nowhere that you're involved with a fictional character to the exclusion of your partner. Like that's insanity. That's not real. Sorry. You could do it consensually maybe, Maybe. But like just deciding? No.

0:30:22 Tom: Well and like kids already don't love to compete for your attention and so for the most part we don't ask them to so when one of my kids I mean when you have more than one kid they do compete with each other for your attention right so sometimes Eamon needs something at the same time that Aislinn needs something and you know I've got to like I can't be two people at the same time I've tried

0:30:42 Eli: Yeah so you choose the kid not the kid foo

0:30:44 Tom: So but like can you imagine can you reimagine this is a scenario where this person if they're already in fucking 10 different relationships and all these discord communities they got a fucking kid foo on the way or whatever at some point there's going to be time where that kid wants the attention of this person and is not going to get it because they are going to be competing for attention with a fucking imaginary friend that's wild to me that is absolutely wild to be that anybody would say out loud something that even is adjacent to that and And wonder, are we not in a crazy person space right now? Are we not, like, in a space where we should, yeah, we can't accept this kind of stuff. It's just like, holy shit, what?

0:31:06 Thomas: We are, Tom. We're in a crazy person's face.

0:31:33 Eli: Well and also keep in mind that this person to put this down an email has already done a bunch of filtering for us

0:31:40 Tom: Yes, I feel so bad for John.

0:31:41 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah probably.

0:31:42 Eli: There's a bunch of behavior that is toxic that you're probably not even including because you've already like made that okay in your brain right like when you say like oh it got really bad and there was a blow -up in my experience when someone sort of gives me very little detail it's because the details would bias me in one very specific direction

0:32:03 Tom: Yeah, 100%, that's true. Like, there's a lot left out of here on purpose. But, like. I also want to point out, and I think you guys would not agree with me on this. But, I think it's okay, too, to be like, yeah. As a husband or as a wife or whatever, I don't want to compete with your emotional romantic attention. Attention for me personally that's a competition that I either won and that's why we stood up in front of all of our friends and said nice things to each other or we're still in the process of courting but like yeah I have no interest in competing with other people for my wife's romantic attention and her affection that's done like and that'S an agreement you get to make if that'S the agreement you want to make but I feel like with this sort of like hyper acceptance culture that gets kind of shunted off to the side where in this email you get a strong sense of like well I guess I don't really feel like I have a right to say much about this because yeah you do for any reason for any region if you're like yeah actually we don't compete like that's not something we do that's cool you get to do

0:32:28 Eli: Eli was there he made a magic trick yeah yeah of course absolutely

0:32:43 Thomas: Obviously yeah.

0:33:04 Eli: I think all forms of jealousy are unhealthy but I do think they are a thing that you're allowed to ask for in a relationship I think mike pence needs to do do the work to understand why the Billy Graham rule is wrong. But I also think Mike Pence, when he starts dating again, and he should, has the right to express to future partners, hey, just so you know, this is how I feel. I feel like partners shouldn't be in the room with another person. I don't want to be in a room with an opposite person of opposite gender. He's allowed to say that. Now, do I think it's crazy? Absolutely.

0:33:35 Eli: Yeah, but there's a difference between I think this is unhealthy and you could do the job. You could do work on it. And this is an unfair thing to ask. Similarly, I don't think it's an unfair thing of you to ask your partner to say, hey, this is not a healthy way to interact with the world. I don'T want to share your emotional attention with Draco Malfoy and these other things. I donT want to show your time and your attention. I think they're all very reasonable requests to make in the relationship, unless you got into this relationship with this understanding.

0:33:35 Tom: That yeah right yeah well that's fair yeah Yeah.

0:34:05 Eli: If you met on waifugirls .com, that's on you, John, right? No, because this is also what happens, right, like, I think this happens quite a bit, is that people go into a relationship with an understanding and then they want to change the rules or they realize that they actually don't like a thing or they feel differently about a dynamic than they thought they would feel. And that is unfair, right? Then you have to do the work or at the very least, you haveと own the fact that you are doing the damage to yourself. As a person who is poly and has watched a variety of my friends experiment with polyamory, I have had the, hey, we tried it and I feel really bad conversation with a lot of friends. And the really difficult conversation to have there, if you did meet on waifus .com, is, hey, you had an agreement. The urge now that you are in pain is going to be to turn around and punish your partner with the new rules you realized you would like to live by.

0:35:01 Eli: And you are not allowed to do that. I understand you feel betrayed. I understand you feel sad. I understand you had a bad time those are valid you can talk to your partner about that but what you are going to try to do is back up that new agreement how you feel now into how you felt before and that's not okay that is equally abusive as the crazy dudes on reddit who are like is it okay for my girl to be texting her doctor and it's like okay you gotta let it go

0:35:30 Tom: Well, let me ask you this question though, because I think it's okay if somebody like they met on waifugirls .com and it was fine. And then somebody changes their mind. I don't think it should be weaponized. You've got to be able to be like, Hey, I gave that a whirl, thought I'd be into it. Turns out I wasn't into it turns out. It bothers me more than I think. I guess like where I'm stuck with what you were just saying a little bit is like people change and they grow in and out of things. Yeah.

0:35:51 Eli: And if you own it a hundred percent right there's nothing wrong with being like hey I know we met on wayfoodtogirls .com that's not what I want anymore, so I'm changing. If it's on you, totally fine.

0:36:01 Tom: Yeah, okay. Right, so you don't weaponize it against the other person. Right. Yeah.

0:36:03 Eli: Exactly. It's when you move it and say, no, these are the rules of betrayal and social agreement now that it gets unhealthy and abusive.

0:36:11 Tom: Yeah, I want to return to to the idea of competing for time and attention, because I think that that's a big part of what John is feeling here. And I think that's like a big of what undergirds a lot of feelings that people have of jealousy, et cetera. And I was just thinking about it. No part of me would feel bad if I was competing with like Haley's best friend for time. Right? So if Haley says, hey, I'm going to go out on Saturday with my best friend I guess technically like that's a day she didn't spend with me this is a day she spent with somebody else like you could look at it that way right I would be like yeah great have a fun time enjoy time with your best friend that's great you should have relationships with friends and enjoy you know other people in a social like awesome right 100 awesome but I would be zero percent interested in competing with imaginary characters for anything of like an hour for me that would be fucking bonkers and that's not like what I can't read a book

0:37:06 Thomas: And you also wouldn't be competing with an imaginary character. You'd be just not in your partner's mind because they're doing it in their mind. That's not real. Unless they're doing it with another person, in which case we already covered that. That is just having another relationship. It's not real. Sorry, it's not real.

0:37:22 Tom: Yeah I would feel so offended if somebody chose to spend a significant amount of their emotional energy and time and I was losing not even to a fucking person that was I was losing to something that doesn't even like organically give back to my

0:37:41 Eli: It depends on the fictional character. If it was Princess Donut, I would have to understand. I would throw my hands in the air and I'd say she's pretty awesome. I get it.

0:37:49 Tom: Partner I just want to say like that would fuck me up like I know it'd be like jesus christ like I'm an actual person and I'm losing to like the interiority of your mind that's not

0:38:00 Eli: And I'll say this, you don't have to share that. I also share that value, but you don't have to show that value. You and your partner can agree, hey we think imagination is just as important as in real life interactions great cool if you are both consenting to that that's fine what's obvious here is that there's a mismatch and someone is being told hey you have to accept this because it is something that makes me happy I want to touch on one other thing here because I think it sort of goes unspoken a lot which is that a lot of the time when people explore kink or explore a more open sexuality they are also exploring queerness and we understand now that it is not okay to shame someone for queerness and that's that's a good thing right that we understand that you need to accept your partner and in all the explorations of their sexuality that they have but behavior is not identity and a lot of the time people weaponize behavior as identity because if your partner is exploring romantic relationships with a character of the same gender or a different gender than they are used to being with, they may often talk about this as though it is an exploration of their queerness, right? But if I cheat on Anna with a dude, right, if we're in a monogamous relationship and I cheat on Anna with a Dude, she's not being homophobic when she's upset about that.

0:38:23 Tom: Good yeah right yeah

0:39:25 Eli: And that's really important to understand, that drawing those lines doesn't make you queerphobic or homophopic, right. Right? It is the behavior that is the betrayal of trust, not the identity. Yeah.

0:39:38 Tom: I think I know why you brought that up too because I've seen like just reactionarily like I've seen stuff like where people are like hey you really can't be mad this person was just you know exploring a part of their identity it's like no they stepped outside the bounds of the agreement like you can be mad about that literally makes no difference what the gender is there like it's that doesn't that's not even an important or interesting factor

0:40:01 Eli: I'll use a slightly dated example from my own life, but I think about it all the time, which is that I had really close childhood friends and the mom was really good friends with my mom. They went to college together. They were really good Friends. And when the kid was about 10, the mom realized she was gay and left the dad and began dating and eventually married another woman. Right. And then And sort of demanded custody, all this stuff. And what I have never wrapped my head around was the idea that this was anything different than when the dad runs off with the babysitter or the dad runs off with his secretary. There was, and I remember this so clearly, there was this sort of taboo around talking about this bad behavior when I was young because, oh, well, she had discovered that she was gay. But like that didn't change the fact that she abandoned her husband and her kid, right? It didn't change the fact that she had made this major change in the lives of the people that she loved and I'm not saying You don't get to turn gay and I'm not Saying you don't Get to realize you're gay And I'm Not saying you don'T get to go and have more appropriate relationships But I am saying that you have to own that if that is a part of your sexuality, that's fine But you still owe other people with your behavior that change to your identity does not give you carte blanche to treat other people in your life however you want sure

0:41:22 Tom: Necessarily yeah a hundred percent man like there's a there's probably no outcome where people don't get real fucking hurt in the scenario that you just described there's definitely no outcome where everybody's like cash money all worked out for the best but if you're just like yeah I'm just fucking I'm fucking somebody else and then I'm just leaving and you're like well all right that's that's the same it doesn't matter there's no difference there like you said if it's the secretary or the fucking babysitter or the girl down the street it's this same exact thing like you don't get a pass because you realize something about yourself any more than somebody you get a pass it's like yeah I just realized I wanted to be in a different

0:41:59 Eli: Love 19 year olds what can I say

0:41:59 Tom: Relationship like right yeah. It's literally nothing.

0:42:03 Eli: I love when people haven't finished college yet it's my favorite thing in a partner

0:42:07 Tom: I think you owe people an explanation. In the scenario of this crazy email, I know you said if everybody is in on it and they think imagination is just as real as reality or just as good, cool, but don't have kids.

0:42:20 Eli: Oh yeah no I mean this don't have kids or if you already have kids you need to draw extremely hard lines with the guidance of a medical professional like I don't want to be morally panicky but like if my kink or my exploration of my sexuality was this intense I would try to get with a mental health care professional immediately to say hey this thing is really important to me I love it when dudes put baseballs in my butt what's the healthiest way for me to continue to pack my butt with baseballs to just do all nine innings in my own free time without this ever interfering with my child's life. And it seems like this partner does not care about that. The fact that you're worried about this

0:42:31 Tom: Yes. 100%. Yep. Yep. That's exactly it.

0:43:09 Eli: Tells me that this partner has not prioritized telling you, and by the way, I will never expose our kid to this.

0:43:17 Tom: And even if it were non-sexual, I would point out, like if for you and your partner if reality and imagination are interchangeably important that's a space that kids cannot live in that's the space kids can't function in like regardless of its interaction with your sex life like if you are in a place where you personally can't pull apart the difference between fandom and reality and you don't want to and you're okay with that? Awesome. But just developmentally, that's so fucking bad for kids. So bad for kids. You should just be an awesome aunt or uncle. Just do that instead. But you cannot responsibly raise young people who are trying to navigate that question themselves developmentally if you yourself don't respect the boundary between reality and imagination.

0:43:48 Eli: Super bad for kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is the other side of the upside-down space version of the friend mom, right? Y'all had this growing up. It's best exemplified in mean girls where she's like oh my gosh we're like sisters right but like that that sort of version of the friend mom which is like no kids need to be in a child parent relationship with all the security of a child -parent relationship and if that's something you don't want to provide because that's not your jam man uh you either need to make sure there is a person in your life who is providing the child that relationship and and find a way to extricate yourself. Or more importantly, you need to get really intense mental health care. Because if you have a pocket in your brain where you're like, I've got some philosophical ideas that means I don't need to show a child love while it depends on me. You have to, that is the same as I have a bucket in my brain that says it's okay to hit kids sometimes, right? That is abusive behavior. And the only thing that you can do that I'll say out loud on a podcast is get yourself intense, inpatient medical care until you are ready to parent again.

0:44:55 Tom: Yeah man right and put down the harry potter thomas

0:45:17 Eli: Go tell Harry Potter.

0:45:24 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:45:26 Thomas: So many times where I just don't understand, you know, most people because I just think living authentically is so vital like I just cannot imagine living any other

0:45:36 Eli: Oh God, now I'm picturing what Thomas is trying to do.

0:45:39 Tom: Has got a waifu wife oh man oh

0:45:39 Thomas: Kind no the reason I'm not, I'm actually not saying that I'm saying the fact that like if there's any major life stuff or identity stuff or whatever stuff that you're hiding or not willing to be out to your partner you know not not to say like you have to be in public because no you know different people depending on where you are and all that it might be dangerous

0:46:02 Eli: Just got six e -readers. I'm fucking these.

0:46:06 Tom: Boy it's kindling a

0:46:08 Thomas: This idea of not like you said with the porn thing like the idea of having any part of your identity like the main part of you know I realized or something that I was gay and then what you said about eli the person you were talking about where it's like they ran off with the woman or whatever it's I hope that's less and less a thing I don't know I guess we're regressing pretty hard but the whole saying closeted and not realizing that about yourself or if you did realize that about yourself being willing to kind of do that to another person to get married to another person knowing that that's not who you're even attracted to is like so rough for like to kind to ruin someone's life like that or to least significantly harm someone's like that and it's like you just need to be honest with yourself and your partner about who you are and if you can't there's something wrong and you need to probably figure out what that

0:47:03 Eli: Yeah, right. And if you're bringing it to someone else's door, you're doing a bad job. It's not nice. We've talked about this on the show before, but like as a mentally ill person, that was a really hard lesson for me to learn, right? Because I would be, for a lot of my youth, I would really be shitting to my partners and they'd be like hey man seems like you're being shitty and I'd be like oh you don't understand I have mental illness and it wasn't until I got much older that I realized like oh I'm just a person and everything I do is still me right and I I work with I work around with that and I do the work to make sure that it doesn't affect my partners I do not in fact get to hoist my bad behavior off under this category yeah

0:47:26 Tom: Romance right right

0:47:43 Thomas: Is right well anyway um hermione needs me so I got it can we cut this short

0:47:46 Eli: Exactly get her to uh tom one thing before we go before I tell everyone my dad joke tom if you do not choose a waifu everyone you love will die who are you choosing any fictional character

0:48:01 Tom: It's any fictional character

0:48:05 Thomas: Can I count aoc as a fictional character I just I just really like

0:48:10 Tom: That's god I fucking have I genuinely have no idea I genuinely have no fucking pull those triggers I don't know what to tell you

0:48:16 Eli: Sure they have guns to your children's temple tom Tom, you just

0:48:18 Thomas: Aoc you could do yeah you could you could fall down and tell me be like name a fictional character

0:48:23 Tom: Yeah that's the problem them thomas is almost like I don't know man like I'm not into

0:48:23 Eli: Kneel down. I'm sorry.

0:48:23 Thomas: And you'd be like uh I haven't watched a

0:48:28 Eli: The problem is Tom reads exclusively horror and like apocalypse fiction. So he's like the dad from the road. I don't look at the road from the wrote

0:48:36 Tom: Stuff I'm just I'm the worst person at like the celebrity crush thing I'm that never has been a thing for me or the

0:48:40 Thomas: Thing well

0:48:40 Eli: The winter from the route. Yeah. Same, same, same. Same, same, same, same.

0:48:50 Tom: Uh yeah I'm just like I know that's a person on a screen they're not even people

0:48:54 Thomas: I don't mind a celebrity crush it's the character crush that I don'T get like that's it's fake

0:48:58 Eli: Oh, I actually like character. Oh, now see here. Here's my hot take before we get here at the end. I like a character crush way more than a celebrity crush because, well, first of all, I just think it's not, there's something about another person's humanity that I understand I'm reducing in my mind. Right. And like, obviously I'm never going to behave in a way towards a celebrity that would make them uncomfortable, but there's just a, I don't know. You ever have a part in your mind where you think someone's, I give you a really good example. Give me a really good example for my wedding asa akira was doing a book signing in new york city right and so I

0:49:33 Tom: Right I have have no idea who that is who is asa akira

0:49:36 Thomas: Yeah I don' t know

0:49:36 Eli: Jesus you're prude you don't know who asa Akira is she's the most famous porn star in the world if you google her you will instantly recognize her yes you will asa and so she was doing a book and so some

0:49:40 Tom: No I assume she's an

0:49:39 Thomas: Either no who's us why oh okay wow no I won't I'm only here talk about our kinks I'm ONLY into amateur porn I DON'T watch professional porn stars

0:49:59 Eli: Friends only it's amateur porn really you what do you hate proper lighting Oh,

0:50:03 Thomas: Yeah why would you well first off I don't have a whole lot of time for porn but I don't yeah I hate proper lighting yeah

0:50:06 Tom: Actress you hate proper

0:50:10 Eli: Thomas, let me say, look, I know you're a busy man. There's nothing I could be doing. I could be an emergency room surgeon at the peak of COVID. I'm getting in my 19 cranks a day. It's not happening. There's literally nothing. There is no thing that is. He was like, hey, if you jerk off too soon after your vasectomy, your balls will explode. And I was like I guess we're going to have to roll them bones, doc.

0:50:20 Thomas: 19

0:50:39 Tom: Lighting

0:50:40 Thomas: Oh we gotta we gotta yes there we

0:50:40 Eli: Point is she was doing a book signing and my friends went and got a book signed for me and then were like hey would you do a congratulatory video for our buddy who's getting married that felt invasive to me I was like and obviously they were incredibly sweet and polite and they asked and she said yes and it was a lovely video where no one acted creepy but that to me was like don't tell her I like her she's a pornographic actress so she would know why and that's not That's not fair to her.

0:51:03 Thomas: Go

0:51:05 Tom: Yes she hasn't figured that out wait a minute people do what when they're watching my

0:51:06 Thomas: Yeah she wouldn't know

0:51:06 Eli: That's none of her, none of her business. I thought you were just a fan of my work. All right, gentlemen, before we go, Yellowstone National Park was struggling for years to find health coverage for their staff. Last week, they struck a deal. They're all on geyser permanente.

0:51:16 Clip: DEAR OLD DAD

0:51:36 Tom: Scenes okay I like that that was good

0:51:38 Thomas: Why

0:52:26 Eli: Immigrant sphinxes are welcome here.

0:52:28 Thomas: It's like when my kid would come in this email has turned me into tom

0:52:31 Eli: I love it when dudes put baseballs in my butt.

0:52:35 Tom: Are we not in a crazy person space right now

0:52:39 Eli: Mental illness